


It must have been the roses and the wine

by Ehlana



Category: The Strange Case of Starship Iris (Podcast)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 15:48:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29886867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ehlana/pseuds/Ehlana
Summary: In the middle of the night on Elion, a year before the Rumor crew had ever heard of Violet Liu, Captain Tripathi runs a job on her own.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 11





	It must have been the roses and the wine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [literaryladytype](https://archiveofourown.org/users/literaryladytype/gifts).



> Inspired by TSCOSI writer Jessica Best's song "Midnight Florist", which @literaryladytype said in discord had "Arkady vibes". Give it a listen first: <https://creepingdoubts.bandcamp.com/track/midnight-florist>

Sana wasn't one to take jobs and run them alone. She didn't keep secrets from her crew. Not even small ones. She barely did anything without Arkady at her side. Tonight, however, found her out of breath, pounding the pavement in a closed-up market district outside Capitol City. Tonight, she was desperately running, searching, hoping that she could find what she needed before she was out of time. Tonight, she was alone.

Slipping out of the shipyard without attracting Arkady's attention had been the hardest part. Sana said she needed to check some levels on the engines -- not entirely a lie -- and waited until the electrical panel indicated Arkady flipped the light switches off in her quarters. From there, she ran.

"Oh the countdown clock is ticking, but there could yet be a way," Sana hum-sang under her breath. The song had been part of a data cache Arkady had hacked during a prior operation -- a collection of small-time, last-century Earth tunes -- and then instructed E.L.L.A. to play on repeat. Tonight, the countdown clock was quite literal. For security reasons, the Rumor's liftoff was scheduled for the wee hours of the morning, 60 minutes from now. And Sana was already 45 minutes away from the ship.

Sana had seen the light. That's what started this fiasco. She and Arkady and Brian had been on a restocking trip through the market district during daylight hours, and there, precariously lying on top of a crate of assorted power supplies, was the light. The bulb was even intact. Brian pulled Arkady away when he spotted sword-shaped cocktail skewers he was sure Krejjh would love, and Sana seized the moment, purchased the light, and stuffed it into her rucksack. It was the last thing she needed, barring one. And that "one" is why she was here.

"It's a long shot for a short con," she continued singing. It wasn't really a _con_ , she ruminated. More of a... surprise. That she was putting together stealthily. In the middle of the night. Which is the primary reason all five merchants she tried had closed hours ago, and wouldn't reopen until she and the Rumor were long gone.

"You got me runnin' for a..." Sana stared down the dirty street, her eyes catching on a dimly-lit shopfront window. She blinked hard and shook her head. Did that really say...? Clinging by her teeth to the possibility she might pull this off after all, Sana sprinted the entire distance to the door and stepped inside.

"How badly did you mess up?" the gray-haired woman behind the counter said by way of greeting.

"I'm sorry?" Sana panted.

"How badly," she repeated patiently, "did you mess up?" 

"What makes you think I've messed up?" Sana asked, quickly losing confidence that she had not, indeed, messed up.

"Everyone who comes here messed up," the shopkeeper explained. She pointed at the window, which bore the name of the establishment. "We're the Midnight Florist. Nobody buys flowers at midnight unless they messed up rather badly. Badly enough to find themselves locked out of the house, usually. So, how bad is it? Need something that you can carry by hand? Or do you need a basket? We also have vases."

"I don't... I'm not sure that I..." Sana began.

"If that's not enough, we also carry wine, liquor, sweets, greeting cards, whatever you think it'll take. If you tell me a bit about your situation, I can point you in the right direction. I've seen it _all_." Well-worn lines appeared around her mouth as she smiled at Sana.

"I'm actually looking for a... gift. For a friend. She likes plants." Sana felt her haste slowly spilling over into her exhaustion and the mixture started bubbling inside her like chemistry experiment gone wrong. She could feel a deluge of words building up in her throat.

"Plants," the shopkeeper repeated cautiously. "Does she prefer carnations? Daisies? Roses, perhaps? I can pull together a bouquet very quickly. If you're not sure, you're welcome to look through the catalog," she said, placing a thick binder in front of Sana. "Our most popular arrangements are at the front."

"I'm not looking for a bouquet. I'm not looking for an arrangement. I'm trying -- " She felt the words start to tumble out. "I'm trying to make a greenhouse. A garden. I had nearly everything aside from an ultraviolet light, and I was going to get one next month from a friend with a serious heirloom tomato collection, but I found one today." The words were spilling faster now, and she let them flow. "The only thing left is the plants themselves, but all the nurseries closed up hours ago. We'll be off-world before they open in the morning, and after that it'll be weeks until we're planetside again, and while I thought I'd made peace with that, finding that light today made it seem possible that I could finish it sooner, and in three days it's her _birthday_ , and I just -- well, I started dreaming that I could give it to her then," Sana said somewhat feebly. "She deserves something special."

"I see, I see," the shopkeeper murmured with a knowing nod. "A tricky situation. Unfortunately we don't grow our own inventory -- we have cut flowers shipped in with refrigeration. A florist isn't where most people go for houseplants." She started rummaging through an old cardboard box on a shelf behind the counter.

"Trust me, I know. This wasn't my Plan A. Or even B. This is more like Plan Y or Plan Z."

"They're not officially part of the inventory, but I think we may have some packets of seeds. Of course, three days won't be long enough for them to sprout... What kind of plants does your friend like? I'll see if I have a packet."

"Do you have a violet?" Sana asked hopefully.

"An African violet? _Streptocarpus saintpaulia_?"

"Oh, no, the other violet. The wild one."

"The weed? I'm afraid not. Capitol City has a rather aggressive Parks department, and weeds and other undesirable flora are destroyed quickly. It's a dangerous thing to be a wild violet on Elion."

"Whatever grows quickest then," said Sana. "I'll take anything. I don't want to give her an empty greenhouse. It's like gifting an empty wallet. Bad luck."

The shopkeeper crinkled her brow and tapped her finger to her lips several times. "Until a fortnight ago, I had an assistant here. They had some... _unconventional_ ideas about ordering inventory. The chocolate-covered fruit jerky was an unexpected success, but others..." She led Sana back to a small wire rack that held a tray of perhaps the most pitiful potted plants Sana had ever seen. "They don't fit with our business model. Live plants make poor apologies. Nothing says _I'm sorry for not appreciating everything you do_ like something else you have to care for to keep it from dying, you see? But these poor little ones aren't thriving here, no matter what I do, and I'd like to see them go to a good home."

"What are they?" Sana asked, gently taking a wilted and unrecognizable leaf between her fingertips.

"Herbs, mostly. Basil, oregano, aloe vera. The one on the end is spearmint, but I think it's beyond saving. The others might make it with enough love and care. Would these suit your friend?"

Sana's mind was three steps ahead, fitting the tray into the greenhouse, watering them without waking Arkady, mounting the light still buried in her rucksack. "How much for all of them?"

* * *

"Everything okay here?"

Sana jerked her head up from the fuel tank with a start and saw Arkady, who had entered the engine room behind her.

"Fine!" Sana replied a little too loudly. "Everything's fine." She had made it back to the ship with three minutes to spare and sneaked through the cargo hold into the engine room mere seconds before Arkady walked in.

"Hey, no need to worry," Arkady said, placing a comforting hand on Sana's shoulder and noticing her captain's rapid breaths. "Security's minimal right now and the scans are clean. We'll be out of here in no time. It's not another Noether, okay? No surprises."

Sana breathed deeply. "No surprises."

She waited until Arkady was well out of earshot before clambering through a hidden panel in the wall of engine room, sealing it behind her, and carefully extracting the brown-leafed spearmint sprout from her rucksack. Quietly, she sang to it.

"If the angels of my better nature want to have some words... well, they'll have to find me first."

**Author's Note:**

> Is the ex-shop-assistant Krejjh's kindred spirit who thinks that fruit jerky and "things that are alive" are the best things for a relationship? That part will have to stay a mystery.
> 
> There is an alternate ending in my head in which the shops are all closed and Sana becomes her own piratical Midnight Florist by sneaking into residential neighborhoods with one of Arkady's knives and taking cuttings from plants she finds and rooting them in water.


End file.
